EU Punishing the UK by Withholding Galileo GPS System

The Galileo satellites are the European equivalent GPS, except they say it’s “for the people” with no military shutoff switch like the US one “unless under extreme circumstances” 😉 It’s been in the making for almost 2 decades, starting off with a private/public partnership that failed (which included China) and they were finally convinced to use different frequencies than GPS was already using after very long arguments.

After the failure of the private/public partnership, the EU decided to fully “nationalize” the project. Eventually in the last few years they managed to get a few satellites up there. Unfortunately their Swiss-made atomic clocks have been failing. No worries though, spend some more money and – the Swiss have been working on better ones, and they’ll go up with in subsequent launches.

The EC with Junker decided that the UK should no longer have access to Galileo’s special military powers (which Galileo doesn’t have of course because it’s “for the people”). They won’t even listen to the UK about the issue. Even though the UK funded around £1.4 billion.

Again, the “family” you dare not leave.

Germany agrees with this and is adamant that the UK be denied access. France, amazingly, is siding with the UK. As is Span, the Netherlands, Sweden and the so-called Baltic states.